Red like Roses
by TheCone Esq
Summary: Ruby never truly got over her mother's death, and it left her with a steadfast refusal to be sad, even if it means lying to herself and those around her. That hollow optimism will be needed.


A/N: Hello! This is my first fanfic, RWBY or otherwise. I hope you enjoy.

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Ruby Rose opened her eyes to a snow-covered scene. Around her was a small, quaint-looking village, the lights in the houses dark and the village quiet. A bit confused as to where she was, Ruby looked up at the sky, noting that it was night with the crumbling moon high and bright in the sky. She frowned a bit, pulling her red cloak tighter around her to ward off the cold. "Why does this seem familiar?" Ruby wondered. "Have I been here before?"

Suddenly, a scream shattered the tranquil night, followed by the growling of what could only be Beowolves. "Grimm! Time to go." Ruby thought, a small smile touching her lips in anticipation of the battle she was about to have, and the Grimm she was about to kill. As the Beowolves rounded the nearest corner and made a beeline for her, she reached for her trusty Crescent Rose.

It wasn't there.

As the group of Beowolves, six or seven of them, beared down on her, Ruby twisted and turned, searching frantically for her beloved scythe. Unable to find it, she tensed and leapt to the side, throwing in a bit of her semblance to gain as much distance as possible. Or, at least, she tried to. Instead, Ruby found herself unable to move, with the group of Beowolves almost on top of her. A strangling fear Ruby hadn't felt in years welled up inside her heart, and she closed her eyes tightly.

The hunting growls of the Beowolves turned to whimpers of pain. When Ruby opened her eyes, she saw a beautiful women in a flowing white dress standing before her, wielding a massive, dual sided scythe. The woman turned, stared at Ruby with horror, and shouted, "Run, Ruby!"

Ruby turned to follow the woman's orders, but found herself still unable to move. "I can't, Momma!" Ruby screamed. Then her eyes widened as the Beowolves, even the ones the woman had struck down, lunged at the woman. Instead of turning around, the woman -_her mother?_\- allowed the incoming claws to lacerate her back, sending blood flying. "No…" Ruby whispered, suddenly terrified to the point of immobility. Her mother - it must be- staggered towards Ruby, reaching a hand out. Suddenly, appearing from nowhere, a Deathstalker rose up and launched a pincer swipe at Ruby's mother. The swipe slashed her almost in half, sending a wave of blood splashing over Ruby. In absolute horror, despair, and terror, Ruby fell to her knees and stared at her now blood-covered hands. She could feel the hot blood on her face as the Beowolves circled in and the Deathstalker drew back its stinger and the stinger leapt forward and the Beowolves dived in and her mother was _dead…_

Ruby's eyes flew open, her body still shaking from sheer terror. Eyes flickering about, trying to get a sense of where she was, Ruby exhaled slowly. The dorm room at Beacon… just another nightmare. Just… another… nightmare. Taking a few deep breathes, Ruby climbed out of bed, being careful not to disturb Weiss (being VERY careful not to disturb Weiss) or disturb the careful balance of their homemade bunkbed. Ruby knew what to do, from long experience dealing with nightmares. She tiptoed her way over to the nightstand, pausing to look at Yang's bed. Yang had always helped calm Ruby down, ever since her and her father Qrow had taken Ruby in. Today, however, Ruby was a big girl. Yang needed her sleep.

Ruby walked over to the nightstand and opened up a drawer in the middle. She pulled out a large jar of chocolate chip cookies and twisted it opening. Pulling one out, Ruby looked at it for a moment, before taking a bite. Normally she would gulp down the cookie and go for another (they were the greatest food ever invented by man, after all), but this time she savored it slowly, trying to lose herself in the delicious chocolatey flavor. After she finished the cookie, Ruby exercised all the willpower she possessed to close the jar and put it back in the drawer. Having forced down, like she always did, the sadness and terror of the dream with the help of the cookie, Ruby turned back towards her bed to go back to sleep. As she did, she noted the time. It was much later than Ruby had thought: nearly 7:30 a.m. As far as she could recall, Team RWBY had classes at 8:30…

Looking around, Ruby saw that everyone was still in a deep sleep. "Perhaps I can remedy that…." Ruby thought, her face breaking into the smile she wore so often as she reach for her whistle.

The loud _PHWEET_ of the whistle echoed through team RWBY's dorm room. "Rise and shine team RWBY! We have to get ready for classes!" Ruby shouted gleefully as she danced around the room. When no one answered her with anything more than a long-suffering moan, she raised the whistle again. "Come on people! UP!" Ruby shouted, cheery despite the nightmare she had had just moments before.

Weiss rolled over just as Ruby was about to blow into the whistle again. "You insufferable dunce," Weiss groaned, desperately wanting to return to sleep, "It's Saturday."

Ruby deflated a bit. "Oh..." She said, a bit crestfallen. She immediately perked back up. "Then we must get ready to go have FUN! We can go into Vale, and shop and eat and stuff!"

Blake pushed herself up up, trying to rub the sleep from her eyes as she did so. Her golden eyes widened a bit when she saw the time, and she slumped back down."Ruby, I know you enjoy getting a head start on the day," Blake said tiredly, "but can you let us sleep a bit longer?"

"Fine," Ruby said, pouting, "I'll go have fun by myself until you sleepyheads decide to get up." With that, Ruby ran to the bathroom to get washed up. When she got back, Weiss and Blake had fallen back to sleep, and Yang had not even stirred.

Ruby quickly got dressed, and grabbing Crescent Rose and her precious red cloak, which she fastened around her neck, she opened the door to the dorm room and slipped outside.

As the door closed behind her, Ruby was confronted by the fact that she didn't actually know what she wanted to do. She had left with the intention of having fun, but how could she go about doing that?

"I know!" Ruby exclaimed to no one in particular, "I'll go down to the training room!"

Ruby skipped through the halls of beacon, smiling to herself as she thought about the dance she and Crescent Rose were about to have. Upon reaching the training room, she stepped into one of the cubicles and clicked a training program at random. Dust projectors in the corners of the rooms instantly fired up, creating a 3D representation of a Deathstalker flanked by 3 Beowolves in the center of the room.

With a series of clicks and clacks, Ruby unfolded Crescent Rose into its full scythe form. Leveling it at the holograms in front of her, she smiled. "Time to GO!" She yelled.

The Beowolves growled in response, and the leading two leapt at her. Ruby tensed a bit, then launched herself towards left Beowolf. The holographic creature's claws slashed inward, attempting to catch Ruby in their embrace. Ruby spun in midair, bringing Crescent Rose around to catch on the Beowolves neck. One trigger pull later, Ruby was flipping backwards away from the newly decapitated Beowulf. Landing, Ruby only had a moments respite until a movement in the corner of her eye had her leaning back, almost parallel with the ground, to dodge a pincer slash from the Deathstalker. Figuring she should deal with the Deathstalker last, Ruby activated her semblance, fired Crescent Rose, and blasted past the last Beowolf, cutting it cleanly in half. Turning finally to the Deathstalker, she emptied 6 shots in quick succession into its maw, then leapt forward, bringing Crescent Rose down in a brutal overswing, past the claws moving to defend to bury the scythe's blade deep in the Deathstalker' back.

As the Deathstalker disintegrated, a computerized voice announced, "Training program complete." Ruby stood for a moment, barely breathing hard as she looked around, finding the clock that had recorded her time. The holo-Grimm were much easier to fight and kill than their real world counterparts, so...

"48 seconds?" Ruby said, smiling slightly. "I can do better than that. The others won't be awake for another while anyway..."

An hour later, when Ruby finally finished her "fun" and made it back to her team's dorm room, the rest of team RWBY was already awake, and in the midst of preparing to go into Vale, as she had suggested. When she pushed open the door, Weiss immediately pounced on her.

"Ruby Rose! What have you been _doing_?" Weiss said sternly, looking Ruby up and down disapprovingly. "You are covered in sweat!"

"Calm down Weiss, I was just down in the training room." Ruby said, looking down at herself and realizing that she was, in fact, covered in sweat. "It's fine..."

"It is most certainly NOT fine. If we are going to go down to Vale, then you need to be presentable." Weiss said, folding her arms.

"Oh, lay off her Weiss," Yang said, wrapping her arm around Ruby and pulling her into a one-armed hug. "She's fine! She was just having some fun!"

"Nah, I'll just go take a shower. Weiss is right, I am probably pretty stinky," Ruby told Yang, as she tried to extricate herself from yang's hug. "Now let go please."

"Fine," Yang said, sighing and letting Ruby. "Now you're holding us up."

"Why don't we see if JNPR wants to come?" Blake suggested, looking up from the book she was reading as she tuned out her teammates' antics. "They are friends, it could be fun."

"Hey, yeah!" Ruby said excitedly, "It'll be like a playdate! Or a party! You guys go see if they want to, while I take a quick shower, 'k?"

"Alright." Weiss said, moving towards the door, "I suppose it will be good team building, especially since our first mission is on Monday."

"Oh yeah!" Yang cried, "I had forgotten about that. Guess we should have our fun now, eh Princess?"

"Don't call me "princess"," Weiss said, frowning at Yang. "It's-"

"Heiress, we know." Blake said calmly, standing up from her bed and walking towards the door.

Weiss clicked her tongue in annoyance, but opened the door and the lead the way out for the rest of her team, except Ruby. As Ruby moved towards the bathroom, something Yang said sparked a thought in her, creating emotions that she had to quash as fast as possible. "Guess we should have our fun now..." she muttered, opening the door to the bathroom. "I guess we will be seeing real combat soon..."

And as Ruby Rose knew well, that meant that they may never be able have fun again.

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A/N: This fic is based on ideas I've had floating around my head since before Volume 2, so some things (notably Ruby's parents) may or may not be canon. I make my own rules :D  
Please review with things I can improve on. As I said, this was my first fic, so there is likely a lot to work on. Follow if you feel this deserves such praise!  
Note: Sorry to the first few people who read this as I wrestle with formatting. I'm new at this.


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